


Lip Gloss

by draculard



Category: Wintergirls - Laurie Halse Anderson
Genre: Anorexia, Eating Disorders, F/F, First Kiss, Sleepovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 14:52:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18317513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: Best friends share all kinds of secrets.





	Lip Gloss

Cassie’s fingers thread through Lia’s hair, separating it all into three blonde bunches to be braided. She never tugs too hard, like Lia’s mom does, or even like Lia herself does when she puts it up in a ponytail. She’s gentle to a fault; she never causes the slightest bit of pain.

“Do you like it?” Cassie asks, holding up a mirror. There are dandelions woven into Lia’s hair.

“When did you pick those?” she asks, touching them carefully. She can see herself blushing in her reflection and almost misses Cassie’s shrugs.

“When we were hanging out on the lawn,” Cassie says. “I put them in my pocket when you weren’t looking.”

She’s staring at Lia so intensely that Lia can’t possible meet her eyes. She focuses on the mirror instead.

“Do you like it?” Cassie asks again.

“Of course I do.”

* * *

Cassie’s mom has always let her pick out her own clothes. When they were little, that meant Cassie got to wear pyjamas with all the cool, mean characters on them — Angelica from _Rugrats_ , the Grinch, even Bart Simpson — while Lia was stuck with Barbie and Winnie the Pooh. Now that they’re older, it means Cassie gets her PJs from Victoria’s Secret at the mall.

They aren’t quite lingerie, but the sleep shorts and tank top she’s wearing are undeniably sexy. Lia can’t take her eyes off Cassie’s long, tan legs — Cassie hates the extra bit of flesh on her thighs. She sees it as fat, but Lia can tell it’s muscle. And anyway, Cassie’s thighs are still smaller than everyone else’s in school, except Lia’s.

They get dressed in front of each other, like they always have. Cassie’s bra and panties are matching, and Lia suspects they were purchased from Victoria’s Secret, too. When Cassie hurls herself onto the bed, bouncing a little on the mattress, she grins up at Lia and something in Lia’s chest twists.

“Don’t you feel weird wearing all that?” she asks. Cassie raises her eyebrows, the smile fading.

“Wearing what?” she asks. “You’re the one who’s all bundled up for winter.”

Lia wears her mom’s old Chicago Bears sweatshirt — three sizes too big for her — and a pair of fleece sweatpants covered in reindeer that she got for Christmas. She looks down at them, suddenly self-conscious.

“It’s too hot for all that,” says Cassie, rolling onto her back. Her tank top rides up a little, revealing a flat stomach and protruding hip bones. “Especially sharing a bed. You’re gonna wake up sweating through the sheets.”

Lia bites her lip. Cassie’s right. Hesitantly, she removes her sweatpants, standing before Cassie in nothing but the cheap Hanes panties her mom bought for her at Wal-Mart. If Cassie notices how lame they are, she doesn’t mention it. She’s biting her lip, too, her eyes roving up and down Cassie’s body.

“You’re so skinny,” she sighs, finally turning away. “I wish I was like that.”

“You _are_ ,” Lia says, but she feels proud, because she knows it’s true. If nothing else, she’s thinner than Cassie. She hides the way she’s glowing by jumping onto the bed next to Cassie, their arms bumping.

After a long moment, Cassie looks back at her with a tight smile that feels sort of like a peace treaty. Lia suspects they’ve narrowly avoided an argument.

“What do you wanna do now?” she asks.

* * *

Her eyes are closed, her lips puckered. She feels the cool, waxy slide of gloss making its way over her bottom lip.

“Hold still,” Cassie murmurs. Lia’s eyelids flutter, and she sneaks a glance at Cassie through her lashes. Cassie’s brows are furrowed in concentration as she applies her favorite lip gloss to Lia’s lips.

It tastes like pink lemonade, but it’s calorie-free. That seems obvious, but still, Lia felt so nervous about it that she had to check. She’s asked Cassie if it’s _really_ calorie-free three times already.

It’s too delicious to be okay. She adds an extra five calories to her mental tally for today, just to be safe.

“There,” says Cassie, leaning away. She pops the cap back on her lip gloss and tosses it to Lia’s vanity, where it hits the flat top and immediately rolls off, onto the carpet. “Now rub your lips together like this,” says Cassie, and she demonstrated. Lia mimics her, spreading the gloss to her top lip.

“How’s it taste?” Cassie asks. Her mouth twitches in a strange little smile.

“Good,” says Lia. She hesitates, then huffs out a laugh. “Like pink lemonade.”

Cassie laughs, too. They always giggle when one of them says something stupidly obvious.

But they’ve never kissed afterward, and suddenly Cassie’s lips are on Lia’s. Her left hand finds Lia’s waist, sneaking up beneath her sweatshirt to find her bare skin, holding her still; the other is planted on the mattress for support. And Lia can’t tell if Cassie tastes like pink lemonade, too, or if her own lip gloss is so strong she can’t taste anything else at all.

She’s never been kissed like this before. Boys are rougher with her; they stick their tongues in her mouth so quickly she doesn’t have time to enjoy it, and any time she’s kissed a boy, she’s come away wincing, overwhelmed by the taste of their saliva and the smell of their stale breath.

Cassie isn’t like that. When her lips touch Lia’s, it’s like a spark of electricity settles into her skin, making her entire face tingle, and she thinks, _Oh, this is why people like it so much._

Too soon, Cassie has pulled away. Her hand stays on Lia’s waist, palm warm and soft. She stays close enough for Lia to see the new, pink sheen on her lips, where the gloss rubbed off of Lia and onto her.

“Yeah,” Cassie says with a smile. Lia blinks at her.

“Yeah what?”

“It does taste like pink lemonade,” Cassie says.


End file.
